An Ordinary Mover and Shaker

By Diana Hooley

On Mother’s Day I’ll probably go to a greenhouse and buy some flowers and plants. I’ve done this for many years because May is the perfect time to buy plants. One spring my husband and I were at a greenhouse in Boise when we ran into the agricultural scion of Idaho, J. R. Simplot.

He was an old man at the time, hunch-shouldered and thin, wearing a fedora. I watched him look over a hanging basket filled with geraniums and marveled that a billionaire industrialist spent time in a greenhouse.

But someone in northern Idaho has probably seen Duane Hagadone in the grocery store, or someone in a park in eastern Idaho has seen Frank VanderSloot. Wealthy people who’ve made important contributions are ordinary people, too.

That day in the greenhouse was the first time I’d seen J.R. in the flesh, but he and I have had a long history. That’s the thing about Idaho: our population is small enough that you don’t have to personally know the movers and shakers to feel their impact on your life.